Blast From The Past
Prince was always ahead of the curve. In 1998 he released a trilogy of albums spread across 5 discs and was one of the first artists to offer new and exclusive music online, along with David Bowie and his 1999 studio album ‘…Hours’. His 2004 ‘Musicology’ tour saw Prince give away free copies of his “comeback” album with every ticket purchased to see him live on tour. In 2009 he launched an interactive website to coincide with his three disc album ‘LotusFlow3r’, which was only available at Target stores in America. 2007 and 2010 saw Prince offer two brand new studio albums which were only available by picking up copies of newspapers. But following his release of ‘20Ten’, he claimed “THE INTERNET IS OVER” and went kind of radio silent. He was still on tour mind you, and embarked on the two year ‘Welcome 2 America’ tour, where he played new and exclusive songs like ‘Gingerbread Man’ and one that shared the same name with the two year tour. But by the end of 2012 he was also crafting a brand new musical project in the shadows of Paisley Park…
Eventually 3RDEYEGIRL emerged from said shadows, which saw Prince surrounded by talent and youth alike with his new all female rock band, his first band since he unveiled the New Power Generation (officially) in 1991. The world also saw him return to the internet as Prince went on to create his own Twitter and Instagram accounts. It wasn’t until 2014 when Prince released a new album — he released two on the same day in fact — but this new era saw a brand new website come to light that coincided with the 3RDEYEGIRL era which offered a plethora of new and exclusive one-off singles. Some that were just Prince releasing his new creations into the world whenever he pleased, which is a level of freedom he had been wanting since his mid 90’s battle with his record label; other songs were taken from the vault and reworked, or were entirely brand new compositions, and eventually landed up on his final studio album ‘HITnRUN PHASE 2’ in December 2015.
To me it feels like there was a void between the release of ‘20Ten’ and ‘Art Official Age’, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. While he was on tour with the NPG and rehearsing with 3RDEYEGIRL, Prince was back to embracing the internet and used it to it’s full potential. Only a few of the songs from this period managed to end up on his late albums, which left so many to be lost and forgotten about. But this was such a special and exciting time, it was for me at least, as this is when I became a Prince fan in mid 2013 so I saw a lot of this unfold. And to this day, so many of these songs remain some of my favourite Prince songs. While older fans love the ‘Sign O The Times’ era and hail it as one of his most creative periods, in a way I would liken this as the same. This was MY ‘Sign O The Times’. Now I want to really highlight these tracks and take an in depth look at them all, the timeline of their release and shine a light on these seemingly forgotten songs. I think it’s time for a Blast From The Past.
20Ten
Before we reach the main crux of this post, I just want to offer a little prelude and highlight three tracks that came from the ‘20Ten’ era. Because not only was Prince innovative and on a whole other stratosphere to any artist on Earth, he has more unreleased material than you could ever imagine. A lot of which is coming to light with the super deluxe editions being released in recent years, and hundreds of albums and songs have floated around as bootlegs for years. But one project that was mentioned and never came to light was ‘20Ten Deluxe’, which very little is known about. An interview with Prince’s creative director for the album conducted by The Violet Reality revealed that the album was physically designed and ready to go, had individual artworks for each song and could have potentially included extended versions of the songs on the standard album release (more on that later). There is also rumour that the project would have included new songs exclusive to the release, and fans speculate that the following three could have been among those included.
Cause And Effect: Radio station 89.3 The Current premiered this song on February 26th 2010, before it was made available to buy on the LotusFlow3r website the same day. The reason why the song is speculated to have been attached to the ‘20Ten Deluxe’ project is because of its lyrical content, which explicitly reference four of the song titles that can be found on the album. This idea isn’t new to Prince at all, with it being done on a few songs previously like ‘Jughead’ on ‘Diamonds And Pearls’. The reason why I mainly associate it with this era of Prince’s discography is because it was resurrected on the 2013 ‘Live Out Loud’ tour that 3RDEYEGIRL embarked on. It may not have had the chance to shine on an album, but it wasn’t forgotten about and ended up taking on life as a frequent inclusion to the live set lists of 2013. The song features an incorporated vocal sample from Prince’s second 2009 Montreaux Jazz Festival show, as well as Larry Graham on bass and Chris Coleman on drums. The song itself is a grand rock song that featured distorted guitar chords, wailing guitar solos and synth stabs that bookend an acoustic breakdown section. Lyrically the song gives the impression of Prince looking back on his life while looking toward the future too. To me it comes across as Prince saying that you’re responsible for your own destiny and the creator of your own history.
Hot Summer: This was another song premiered on 89.3 The Current radio station, this time on Prince’s 52nd birthday in June 2010. Rumour has it that this song was slated to be released on an album entitled ‘Welcome 2 America’, which would perhaps have been released beside the tour of the same name, but no such project has come to light as of yet. Chris Coleman is back on drums, being joined by Liv Warfield on backing vocals and Tal Wilkenfield on bass. While this song song was another radio stream that never made an album, it found itself being played in July 2010 on the 20Ten Tour across Europe. ‘Hot Summer’ showcases Prince singing about how “it’s gunna be a hot summer as long as U’re my company” and talk of people dancing to a futuristic sound; musically it’s loaded with keys, handclaps, percussion and female backing vocals alongside Prince’s own. It’s a fun little song and a nice little summer jam, but it’s not the best or most groundbreaking song Prince has ever written or recorded.
Rich Friends: the third new song to be given out to radio stations that year, but rather than being played on air, ‘Rich Friends’ was instead streamed on the KTU website on 14 October 2010. A French radio station played a clip of the song a week prior with the announcement the song was from an “upcoming album” called ‘20Ten Deluxe’, which is what I’m guessing sparked the debates and rumours about the release. There was also a piece of artwork made for the song to be released as an official single, but that never came about officially. Prince is joined on this track by Elisa Dease, Liv Warfield and Shelby J on backing vocals while he helms the instruments; it has low piano notes over a Linn drum pattern and acoustic guitar. This one is a lot funkier in comparison to the last two songs, and we hear Prince singing about people who live off the money of their friends rather than taking responsibility of their own wealth and income: “who needs money when U got rich friends?”.
As 2010 came to a close, Prince continued the Welcome 2 America tour and took his native soil around the world to several other regions. They all got their own tour names too, with some of the individual legs being called Welcome 2 Canada and Welcome 2 Australia for instance. A few of these legs also got their own special releases to coincide with/promote them too, like the song ‘Extraloveable’ being officially released for the first time to coincide with the Canada leg and a 10 minute rehearsal of ‘Mutiny’ being released alongside the Australia leg on the Dr Funkenberry blog. November 2012 saw a new Prince single and music video in the form of ‘Rock N Roll Love Affiar’, which showed off new drummer Hannah Ford alongside Andy Allo on guitar and Prince now sporting an afro. December 2012 saw Hannah Ford teasing a new song and the introduction of a new band member Donna Grantis, and went on to form 3RDEYEGIRL together with NPG bassist Ida Nielsen.
2013
Even though there was plenty of teasing from Prince, he never released an album in this year. It wouldn’t be until 2014 when he released an album — two in one day, in fact — after his last studio album ‘20Ten’. It didn’t stop him from creating and releasing mind you, as the new 3RDEYEGIRL website took to sharing a lot of songs, both old and new. Some of them even feel as though they were just recorded an hour prior to them being released online; some were never mentioned again, some were played live, and some even made the cut of his final album. While all this was happening, he and 3RDEYEGIRL were busy touring across America, showing a brand new and different side to Prince. Momentarily gone was the NPG funk, which would later return for several shows later in the year, as Prince now focused on a female fuelled rock sound. During this period he revived a load of classics like ‘Bambi’ and ‘Endorphinmachine’, while introducing new songs like ’Cause And Effect’, ‘Check The Record’ and a hard rock version of ‘2Y2D’.
Same Page Different Book: The new year and era kicked off on 6 January 2013 as an Xtended version of the ‘20Ten’ song ‘Laydown’ was uploaded to the new 3RDEYEGIRL website for download, alongside a previously unheard song called ‘Same Page Different Book’. This is another song attributed to the rumoured/unreleased ‘Welcome 2 America’ album and features the same musician line up as ‘Rich Friends’, but the inclusion of the horns on this track suggests the NPG Hornz are present too, though the players are unidentified. The track was actually recorded on 11th January 2010 along with the song ‘1,000 Light Years Away’, and was produced by NPG keyboard player Morris Hayes. I have no idea why it took Prince three years to decide to release the song in any way, but I’m glad he did because it’s such a funky song with some politically charged lyrics, such as “there goes the missiles/heading 4 the hood”. Previously I have likened it to the song ‘La La La, He He Hee’ in terms of how funky it is, which some people didn’t seem to agree with. ‘Same Page’ is admittedly nowhere near as fast paced or as long as ‘La La La’, but there’s definitely a strong essence of funk within both of them.
Boyfriend Demo: It makes sense that this song was released on Feb 15th in 2013, the day after Valentines day, as this song comes across as a funky little number from the perspective of a perhaps jealous onlooker. The chorus hears Prince’s falsetto singing “please keep Ur boyfriend away from me, cus eye just don’t wanna fight” as horns play in the background; in the verses he remarks that he sees this woman as a queen while the other man objectifies her, and says that his body and hers would get along. It has also been confirmed by Dr Funkenberry that the released version is the second of three different takes, and although being premiered on the 3RDEYEGIRL website, I still regard it as a solo Prince composition. It fits more in line with the previous funk numbers, and in my head I regard it as being on the same musical level as ‘Hot Summer’. I don’t think it would have fared well on many late Prince projects, but the best context would probably have been on ‘HITnRUN PHASE 2’ as many other songs on there have a lot of horns, like ‘2Y2D’ and ‘RNR Love Affair’. There was also rumour of the song being released on an NPG album along with some other songs recorded around the time. This never happened, but most of the songs this song was compiled with eventually made it onto Prince’s final album. The only songs listed alongside this song on PrinceVault that haven’t been released as of yet are ‘Shades Of Umber’ (which was performed live on occasion in late 2013) and ‘The Secret Text’.
That Girl Thang: Prince got a little intimate for this track, which was released on 18 February 2013 and keeps in line with the love theme. I say it’s intimate because, like ‘Indifference’ that came after it, this is an acoustic song which sounds like it was recorded on some kind of portable software. Prince sings about being entirely seduced and captivated by a girl, just like he did in ‘Pink Cashmere’ with the opening line “oh, here eye go again, falling in love all over”; two decades later he’s got rid of a band and instead sits alone with an acoustic guitar, now singing “oh, eye got it again, that girl thang”. It makes one wonder wonder what other instrumental cuts were recorded around this time, with or without his band, and if there was an idea of doing a second album like ‘The Truth’. Dancer Lala Escarzega shared to Instagram that Prince sent the song to her after she “jokingly asked him to sing her to sleep”. She even received an instrumental version of the song, and Michael B. Nelson has stated that strings were recorded for the song too, indicating there may be a more developed version of the song in that damn vault.
Live Out Loud: This song is a little oddity to me, but very of its time and era. That isn’t me saying the song is dated, what I mean by that is that I think it’s a perfect representation of the 3RDEYEGIRL era. I say that because the lyrics were written by Liv Warfield, the music was composed by Prince and Hannah Welton was on lead vocals; cut to a year later and Hannah is singing on the first (and only released) 3RDEYEGIRL album, the opening track of which is “Prince’s version” of a song from Liv Warfields album. The band also set across America on the Live Out Loud tour from April 15th to May 25th in 2013, but never performed the song. A music video for it was released however. And despite being a more rock influenced band, the song comes across as more of a light hearted and emotional pop song about confidence and living fearlessly to me. It was released on 22nd February, features and was really the first debut of 3RDEYEGIRL, putting the spotlight on the three girls and their capabilities with Prince on backing vocals.
Ain’t Gonna Miss U When U’re Gone: Was released as a single on 12 June 2013, and features Ledisi on the single cover, and the song itself providing backing vocals. It’s a whole six minute funk jam that just goes hard and is so very funky with its percussive drumming, vocal effects and even more horns. It doesn’t get any better than this for me and of this era and period, this is for sure one of my top Prince songs. Across it’s runtime we hear Prince saying how he’s never coming back to this woman after she did him wrong, and goes into kind of bitter lyrics later on in the song that seem to be Prince saying how he’s back on top and better than this person. Some of the lyrics from the song that give me that feeling are “eye bet U think this song’s about U” and “if it wasn’t 4 me U’d be a who”, the latter of which being Prince basically bragging that he made her name. Prince is no stranger to writing bitter songs whenever somebody does him wrong or upsets him, but I would love to thank whoever caused him to write this song personally because I absolutely adore this song. When it gets to the percussive breakdowns I can just vision him dancing on stage, getting the crowd to wave their arms, and the lowered voice section throws me back to ’87 with ‘Bob George’, another bitter revenge song but way darker and minimalistic than this.
Third Heart Of The Octopus Menstrual Cycle Originally Dropped From The Moon: Now that’s a title track and a half, right? It even beats out ‘La La La He He Hee’ and is probably the longest Prince song title ever! But despite its long title, it’s only a minute long in length. The reason I bring it up is because, along with 3RDEYEGIRL, Prince would often do late nite video streams at Paisley Park where you could either see the band rehearse or hear studio and live trax broadcast on screen. It was kind of like a half radio/half live stream thing, proving that Prince was again ahead of the curve, and was kind of like a more recent version of his 2001 NPG Ahdio Shows. 3RDEYE TV went live on July 2nd, and viewers witnessed the band playing various instrumentals on the spot. The very next day over on the 3RDEYEGIRL SoundCloud page, some brand new tracks were released that came directly from the 3RDEYE TV broadcast. They were ‘Octopus Heart’, ‘Menstrual Cylce’ (which clocked in at 10 minutes long) and ‘Moon Drop’.
Da Borgeouise: Initially went live on the 3RDEYEGIRL store on November 18th 2013, before being taken down and replaced it with a version with horns on November 25th. I remember this track dropping and hearing it for the first time, and it seemed very relevant to my life and things going on at the time. I won’t say what specifically, that’s a story for another time, but this song is really important for that reason. It felt like Prince was speaking to me. I kind of consider ‘Da Bourgeoisie’ to be the cousin to the song ‘Bambi’ from his self titled second album, because both are about lesbian relationships and Prince disapproving of them. In the first he makes out that it’s “better with a man” and here he seems betrayed, and again is bitter, because a woman has seemingly left him for another woman. He jokes about Ray Charles and his inability to see in the line “even Ray Charles saw U in the past b4 he saw me”, while the rest of the lyrics and his vocals are both really playful. Where this differs from ‘Bambi’ is that this one is much more minimalistic and funky, and along with the single release he wrote on the 3RDEYEGIRL Facebook page: “Definition of a chameleon: a changeable, fickle, or inconsistent person”.
2015
Not a lot really went down in the way of exclusive studio songs being released in 2015, as most of them were songs that would either end up on album (like ‘Baltimore’ and ‘HARDROCKLOVER’) or were pulled from albums that were already out (as the remix of ‘THIS COULD B US’ came from the ‘PHASE 1’ album). It’s kind of understandable as to why there wasn’t many coming out at the time though, as Prince and the band had a lot going on. In 2014 he released two albums on the same day while touring Europe and America with 3RDEYEGIRL; in 2015 they were on tour in Europe and America again, as well as occasionally stopping off in Canada and even Dubai for a benefit concert. ‘Phase 1’ was also released in September 2015 as an exclusive digital Tidal-only release before going to the retail market. December 2015 saw Prince drop what would be his final album on Tidal, ‘PHASE 2’, literally out of thin air. Aside from two years of touring and two albums, we did manage to get some new music that didn’t manage to make it onto the studio albums.
What If: Prince was back to playing new music on radio with his and 3RDEYEGIRL’s cover of ‘What If’, a song originally written by Nichole Nordeman. It was offered as a free download by Live Nation on 14 March 2015 to anyone with a ticket to one of the four shows Prince and 3RDEYEGIRL were due to play in Kentucky that day and the next. The song was performed at the third of the four concerts, opening the first encore and being played performed ‘Purple Rain’. The song was strangely enough found listed on an alternate tracklist configuration of the first 3RDEYEGIRL album ‘PLECTRUMELECTRUM’ as the last track, but was crossed out, meaning the track could have been sat around for two years before its free download release. Either way, Prince is no stranger to releasing his own cover songs, which he has done regularly since his 1996 freedom album ‘Emancipation’ that featured covers of ‘Betcha By Golly Wow’ and ‘One Of Us’. Here though, we hear him and his band recording their own guitar heavy, rock take on a song by a notable Christian singer that’s presented here as a duet between Prince and Hannah Welton. It was odd when I discovered that Prince, previously a Jehovas Witness from 1999 onwards, had covered a “Christian” song. But if anything I think it shows that in some way there was still religion, faith and spirituality inside of him, even if it was now being paired with a hard rock sound (and strings on an unreleased version of the track).
Indifference: During the Yahoo! Album release party for Prince’s ‘Art Official Age’ album, Trevor Guy played presenter Maya Washington and the viewers some exclusive videos. One was the full version of the Madison Dube ‘PLECTRUMELECTRUM’ live track, the other was a minute long clip of a brand new song from 3RDEYEGIRL that wouldn’t get a proper release until 7th September 2015. I remember being so elated when the full version was finally released, but getting it was difficult for me as it was another Tidal exclusive release. In the video we see Prince, Donna, Ida and Hannah all crowded around on the other side of a video camera. Just like ‘That Girl Thang’ from two years prior, this is an acoustic track that’s surprisingly upbeat and full of music. It’s like the band knocked off the distortion from their instruments and all huddled together to present a more intimate and stripped down version of their band, but even in this setting it shows they’re still tight as an entity and that Grantis and Prince can both still effortlessly play a guitar solo. Just like many other songs of the era, the lyrics are playful and contain some of my favourites from Prince’s later recordings. My favourite part of the track is the section where Prince sings “U wanna B Theresa but U act like a whore/U want the best of people but just walk out the door/Eye’ll make another masterpiece, but guess what?/U’ll still be a bore”. Hearing the reformed Prince singing the word “whore” was another shock, and it seems like this song was another bitter track, but the fact that Prince calls whoever the song is about a bore is probably the most hard hitting thing. It’s such a basic word that’s nowhere near as explicit as calling somebody a “whore”, but I think that’s why it cuts so much deeper and stings so much more. The song closes with the band sat laughing, kind of like friends who have just gossiped about a friend only for them to walk past. But if anything it still proves that Prince is one of the baddest and shadiest characters around. Even now he cannot be matched.
Free Urself: After being alluded to in teaser videos with the song ‘Stare’ playing behind text and photos, a song called ‘Free Urself’ was released to iTunes on September 30th 2015, two days after it was streamed on Tidal as one of Prince’s Purple Pick Of The Week tracks. The song was performed a few times during Prince’s final solo piano and microphone concerts, first being played on January 21st 2016 and for the last time on March 25th 2016 (funnily enough, that was my 16th birthday), often coming much later in the shows as part of the encores and paired with the song ‘Purple Music’. Often I find this song so heartbreaking and bittersweet to listen to, because it sounds truly futuristic with it’s instrumentation, but also has Prince singing in a pensive mood as he opens it by asking “how did we get here, how did we get this far?” before going on to say “look at where we came from/how far we are 2day”. The chorus has him instructing “free urself and save a place 4 me”. It’s such a hard thing to digest and reflect on considering everything that would go on to happen, but thankfully the song selves into such a funky and soulful breakdown toward the end.
If Eye Could Get Ur Attention: Originally released in 1987 on Teja Saville’s self titled album, it wasn’t until November 9th 2015 that a version of the song with Prince’s vocals made it to the airwaves. The song was originally started on 10th May 1986 before it’s Teja Saville release, and then both Jill Jones and Mayte would have a shot at recording their own versions of the song. Neither were released to the public and the song sat around for a while until it began to resurface in live shows in 2011. It’s believed that this version was recorded in 2014 and some speculation mentions it may have been considered for release on Prince’s last album, with others speculating the song would have ended up on ‘HITnRUN PHASE 3’; if such an album exists is unknown. There’s also an alternate version of the song that leaked, now complete with horns and strings which I much prefer and often listen to over the original. The song itself is a short and sweet love song about how Prince is “getting flustered” just thinking about this woman, and how he just wants her attention so he can smother her in love, kisses and turn her on. It’s like ‘1000 X’s AND O’s’ from the ‘PHASE 1’ album, a short and sexy love song.
2016
It’s weird to think that 2015 started with a rocking cover of a Christian song and ended on a sexy love song, but the following year would open with Prince giving a few autobiographical performances at Paisley Park. He sat at a piano, spoke and sang into a microphone as he spoke about his life and played through his discography. At the first he jumped from the ‘Batman’ theme song to others down through the ‘1999’ and ‘Parade’ albums; at the second he gave more of a “deeper cuts” set, playing songs like ‘The Dance’ and ‘Dear Mr. Man’. Occasionally at Paisley Park he would throw dance parties and come out for a DJ set, or play with his new band which were busy rehearsing the newer songs from his last few albums. In late 2015 he announced a Solo Piano And A Microphone Tour across Europe, which I was going to attend and have it be my first ever Prince show. The 2015 terror attacks in Paris sadly rendered the tour cancelled, but in 2016 he embarked on a new one across Australia, Canada and America. Two dates were sadly cancelled and postponed a week due to illness, with these being played on April 14th rather than April 7th; on April 16th Prince was back home and threw a dance party at Paisley Park to show off his new custom guitar from Gus Guitars. I presume he was working on new tracks too, with a new song called ‘Stay Cool’ being found on a music stand in a recording studio at Paisley Park and new albums also being teased on Twitter and at the show. Four days later came the heartbreaking news that Prince had transcended.
Ruff Enuff: Right before the first piano show at Paisley Park, Prince unleashed a new song to us with a new band consisting of MonoNeon on bass, Kirk Johnson on drums, Adrian Crutchfield on vocals and Prince himself on guitar and keys. Occasionally the band would play at Paisley Park, loads of videos of which are on Princestagram, and they’d be joined by Donna Grantis on guitar too. This new track was originally unveiled to us on January 11th 2016 as an instrumental track on Tidal before a vocal take followed the next day. A description for the song stated it was from an “as yet untitled debut album” for the band, and Prince confirmed Grantis was due to overdub her guitar playing the weekend of it’s release. A lot of evidence points to the album being called ‘Black Is The New Black’ and was almost complete around the time Prince transcended; there’s also talk of ‘Free Urself’ being part of that album and, the fact a talkbox is used by Crutchfield for his lead vocals on this track makes me wonder if Prince’s re-recording of ‘If I Could Get Ur Attention’ may have been considered for it too. The song was released with main credits to MonoNeon with Prince again taking a back seat, and is labelled as a jazz single, but it’s a funky one at that. I would love to hear what the finished version with Donna playing on sounds like, and I hope the full ‘Black Is The New Black’ album is released soon as evidence suggests it’s the last studio album Prince worked on. He also had intentions to release a live album from his Piano & A Microphone tour, even releasing a single from it in his lifetime. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself…
And just like the aftershow, it ain’t ova! I understand if you wanna leave and see the rest as just filler, but I hope you’ve enjoyed what you read to this point. But we’ve still got a large amount of tracks I want to run through, consisting of pre album singles and live performances. As well as reminding you of all these songs that are highly glossed over, I wanted this to not only be a review, but a post that delves deep into the timeline and history of this era, and cover as many things as possible.
Pre-Album Singles
Alongside all these other one off singles Prince and 3RDEYEGIRL released between 2013 and 2015, there were a load of other songs that were seemingly throwaway singles that was just Prince being Prince, using his freedom and artistry to release new songs whenever he felt like it. But as it turns out, a lot of these early 3RDEYEGIRL period songs would later turn up on his final run of albums. Remember: Prince had a four year gap, his longest between albums of his entire career, between 2010 and 2014. These singles were a fantastic way to tide things over, but it came as a shock to me when a lot of these singles ended up on tracklists for two of his final three albums. I don’t want to get into them too much as I plan on doing individual album reviews for ‘ART OFFICIAL AGE’ and ‘HITnRUN PHASE 2’ eventually — when I have it in me to listen to them fully — so this section will be a gloss over of these tracks and include my memories from their release.
Extraloveable: Even though this song was dropped as a single to promote the Canadian leg of the Welcome 2 tour, it dates all the way back to being recorded on April 3rd 1982, before becoming one of the most famous and popular bootlegged Prince songs. When it was finally officially released on November 23rd 2011, Prince claimed the song was a tweaked verion of the 1982 original, though this wasn’t the case — if you hear both versions side by side you will hear a massive difference, with the 2011 single also featuring a rap from then-protege Andy Allo. June 19th 2013 saw a new version of the song released called ‘Extraloveable Reloaded’, which omitted the rap Andy Allo provided and included more horns instead. This version would later appear as ‘Xtraloveable’ on Prince’s final album ‘HITnRUN PHASE 2’ in December 2015.
Rock and Roll Love Affair: After regaining his afro, getting a new Telecaster guitar with a mirrored front and updating the NPG lineup, Prince took his new look and incarnation of his band to the NPG Music Club room of Paisley Park to record a video of them performing a brand new song, ‘Rock and Roll Love Affair’. It was released as a single on November 22nd 2012 after being played live for the first time a month earlier on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and have a plethora of remixes released digitally and virtually. It would also later turn up on ‘PHASE 2’ in December 2015. Despite Hannah Ford being shown playing drums in the music video and on Jimmy Kimmel, it was John Blackwell who was credited for playing on the song. Even though Andy Allo is clearly shown in the video too, I have heard some speculation as to whether her vocals were included or removed on the album version of the song.
Screwdriver: The first instance of this song dates back to December 2012 when Hannah Ford posted a teaser, giving fans a taste of rehearsals at Paisley Park. The song was released as a single on February 4th 2013, with a remix being made available for purchase the next day. A live video of the song then went up on Prince’s new website five days later, showing Donna Grantis’ talent on guitar in a jam shot in black and white at Paisley Park. Later on came a much more colorful lyric video for the song, showing a more goofy side to Prince as he played his mirrored Telecaster and a keyboard in an animal hat. His band were obviously around him, with a female dancer included too. The later mystery surrounding when ‘PLECTRUMELECTRUM’ would be released and 3RDEYEGIRL playing the song in both videos led me to believe it would be included on their debut album, but it wasn’t until ‘PHASE 2’ dropped when the song was finally included on an album. The studio version credits John Blackwell with drumming and Ida Nielsen on bass, meaning it wasn’t born as a 3RDEYEGIRL song after all.
Groovy Potential: Released as a stand alone single on August 14th 2013 and never performed live, I was shocked when I saw ‘Groovy Potential’ was another early single later included on ‘PHASE 2’. To me it’s one of the most incredible love songs I have ever heard, and beside ‘Revelation’ on the same album, it definitely shows Prince at his finest. I haven’t listened to ‘Groovy Potential’ in so long however, as I’m to scared to revisit it for emotional reasons and am reserving it for a special occasion. But I urge anyone who hasn’t heard it to do so, because it will seriously flaw you and blow you away. Prince was always one to make the most incredibly, sensual and sexy lover songs. ‘Groovy Potential’ shows he still had it until the end. While I can’t begin to imagine how it would have been if he ever performed it live, it’s a massive shame he didn’t bring such an incredible song to life. Along with the other stand alone singles that ended up on his final album, I think they’re all a perfect showcase of Prince saving his best music for his last release.
Breakfast Can Wait: The first release of this song dates back to 3rdeyegirl.com opening officially in February 2013, but the song was released as a single to iTunes in September that year, with Dave Chappel dressed as Prince featured on the single art. A month later came ‘The Breakfast Experience’ EP on October 24th before being included on ‘ART OFFICIAL AGE’ in September 2014. A few days prior to the EP being released though, Prince and 3RDEYEGIRL played a pyjama dance party at Paisley Park on October 19th. I really hold this event close to my heart, because even though I was 13 and sadly never made it to the show — or any Prince show, in fact — I remember this being the first ever Prince show he played after I became a fan. I remember sitting at the dining table at home, staring at the promo poster of Donna, Ida and Hannah in their pyjamas and telling my parents “I need to get to Paisley Park now”. It was bittersweet seeing all the videos of the show come out, with the entire band playing a full show in their pyjamas, but this marks the beginning of something that continues to change my life in multiple ways. The influence of Prince is addictive.
FALLINLOVE2NITE: Prince appeared on an episode of ‘New Girl’ in February 2014, which featured a duet of a brand new song between him and Zooey Deschanel as the principal cast and Prince’s band partied up on stage under a purple glow. A month later the song was released in full to iTunes, giving fans the chance to hear the duet in its full glory. It was later included on Prince’s ‘HITnRUN PHASE 1’ album in September 2015, but without Deschanel’s vocals. You can click here to read my full review of the ‘PHASE 1’ album.
The Breakdown: Something Prince is most famous for is changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol while fighting his record label for his master tapes. So I think it came as a shock to us all when there was a press release in April 2014 saying Prince and Warner Brothers — the label he was at war with in the 90’s — had settled their differences and signed a deal together. After this announcement came their first major single release together since ‘Dinner With Delores’ was released in 1996, with the release of a song called ‘The Breakdown’. During Prince’s appearance on Arsenio Hall in March 2014, he was asked what his favourite song of his was and responded by saying: “eye usually answer by saying “the next one”, but there is a song that we’ve just written called ‘The Breakdown’”. This statement alone should be testament to how much Prince loved the song, being able to single out one song among 35 studio albums and a rumoured 8,000 unreleased songs. It was later included with the new title ‘BREAKDOWN’ on ‘ART OFFICIAL AGE’ in September 2014, but was first played over the PA prior to a performance in January 2013 at the Dakota Jazz Club.
Baltimore: When the news broke of Freddie Gray being killed in Baltimore, Prince took to the studio to do what he did best, and wrote a song about the injustice against black people. It was recorded on April 30th 2015 before being released as a single on May 9th and again on May 26th, but prior to release Prince and 3RDEYEGIRL hosted a Dance Rally 4 Peace at Paisley Park on May 3rd with attendees being urged to wear the grey colour in tribute to Freddie; the entire show was then posted to Prince’s SoundCloud page before being removed. On May 10th Prince flew to Baltimore to play another Rally 4 Peace, which was live streamed to TIDAL and included the only live performance of ‘Baltimore’. Even though the show was streamed at the early hours of the morning on a school night, 15 year old me still stayed up to hear it, and it was the closest I ever got to hearing Prince play live. The song was then included as the first song on his final album in December 2015, and after the #BLM movement across the past year, it surprised me when this song didn’t resurface. Prince was fighting for black lives a whole five years before mainstream social media, but really, he had been fighting for racial equality his whole life.
HARDROCKLOVER: With this song comes one of the fondest memories of being a Prince fan. I came back from school one day, and was scrolling through Facebook to see that Prince had dropped another new song out of nowhere. In his last couple of years, this is something he grew fond of and did frequently; it’s also one of the things I miss most about Prince. I remember sitting down and was ready to except a sexed up, funky love song similar to ‘Stare’. But instead I was blown away; my words stolen, my expectation destroyed. That song was ‘HARDROCKLOVER’ and is another demonstration of final phase Prince being at his best. In my eyes it should be hailed as much, if not higher, than some of his biggest hits. July 7th saw it debut as a single, before ending up on ‘PHASE 1’ in September 2015.
Live & Rehearsal Trax
Chapter & Verse: After the second show at the Dakota Jazz Club on January 17th 2013, a live cut from the show was uploaded to the newly created 3RDEYEGIRL YouTube channel, of a song called ‘Chapter & Verse’. It’s the only time the song has ever been performed after the NPG crafted the song on the spot, indicating it’s a one of a kind song in Prince’s wide discography. It’s a funky little number with lots of improvised and noodling on instruments, but still warrants a listen as it boasts how well Prince can control his band, and how well they handle the pressure of crafting a new song on the spot. The improvised lyrics mark the occasion as “the medicine show” with a lot of interaction with the band and crowd, also holding a reference to band member Shelby J’s beekeeping with the line “like Shelby making honey, eye found another stack of purple money”.
PLECTRUMELECTRUM: When the ‘PLECTRUMELECTRUM’ album was finally released in September 2014, we learnt how the entire thing was recorded live in the studio at Paisley Park. Testament to that is a video that surfaced in the early days of 3RDEYEGIRL, when nobody know who or what they were. This video did confirm the inclusion of Prince, though to what degree he was involved, nobody knew. It did show him as the primary band leader (without his afro). Only the second half of the studio performance was originally released with it going online on March 13th 2013, with the full version finally being shown during a Yahoo! Live stream the day both Prince’s 2014 albums were released. The clip was filmed by Madison Dube and credits 3RDEYEGIRL as the artist, showing them playing the title track of their album while playing off each other too. The song was originally composed by Donna Grantis before being adapted by Prince for this new band and era.
Let’s Go Crazy Reloaded: At the end of March came a static image of Prince, with a new take on ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ playing underneath it. Labelled as ‘Let’s Go Crazy Reloaded’, it perfectly demonstrated what 3RDEYEGIRL would be doing out on the road. Together they shifted the ‘Purple Rain’ classic from an upbeat funk-rock track to pure hard rock, slowing it down and turning it into a jam blended with ‘Frankenstein’ by Edgar Winter. The second half of the song after Prince’s vocals centre around ‘Frankenstein’ and really give the other members of 3RDEYEGIRL room to breathe and show off. You can hear Ida playing a distorted bass solo with Donna and Prince switching up who takes the solo, all while Hannah Ford keeps the band going on drums. It was a fierce opening statement to make.
BOOMSTRATUS: A few days later on April 4th 2013 came another clip showing 3RDEYEGIRL doing their thing, with the combination of another Prince song merged with a song he’d frequently taken to covering live. Though entirely instrumental and lifted from rehearsal, ‘BOOMSTRATUS’ takes Prince’s own ‘Boom’ from ‘LotusFlow3r’ and swiftly transitions into ‘Stratus’ by Billy Cobham. Behind the band playing the medley was a video of the 3RDEYE Girl’s venturing around the Minneapolis snow, record shopping and having fun together. The photos were captured by Madison Dube again and show off Prince’s contemporaries and influences, before ending on a statement he held close to his heart: “support real music by real musicians”. The track is another showcase of the hard rock reinvention Prince was going through, and about to take on tour.
She’s Always In My Hair: After taking his band on the road for the Live Out Loud tour, and playing two shows at Canada’s Vogue Theatre, Dr Funkenberry was given a live take of the classic and loved b-side ‘She’s Always In My Hair’ to stream on his SoundCloud page on April 16th 2013. Though the track was only five minutes in duration, the song underwent its own transformation from Prince’s new band to be stretched up to a ten minute live jam. My personal favourite iteration of the reloaded song came from a show on 7th August 2013; it shows the band playing the song from start to finish, while Prince again gives each member of his new band time to shine and plays around with the audience. He also tells the audience “there R no computers on this stage” and exclaims they’re witnessing real music by real musicians” before giving a blistering and emotive guitar solo.
The Sweeter She Is: One recent addition to Prince’s live sets at the time was a cover of ‘The Sweeter He Is’ by The Soul Children; except for Prince’s version, he changed the lyrics and title slightly to be ‘The Sweeter SHE Is’. A live rehearsal of the song was offered via Prince’s Twitter account on 16th October 2013 before being sent to a fan, who was then responsible with distributing the link among everyone else, before Prince made the link public himself. At the point of the rehearsal going live, Prince hadn’t yet covered the song at a show, but would do so three days later at the Breakfast Can Wait pajama dance party. The jam stretches to seven and a half minutes with Prince’s emotive vocals surrounded by Hannah Ford’s crashing cymbals, piano playing and guitar licks. In the recording you can hear just how much fun the band was having while playing it. This cover would be a mainstay in Prince’s live sets for a little while before being played for the final time in March 2014.
Something In The Water (Does Not Compute): Another lengthy jam was shared on October 31st 2013, with the ‘1999’ album track ‘Something In The Water (Does Not Compute)’ getting the reloaded treatment this time. The rehearsal was cut the day before at Paisley Park and was later available to download the day after, and featured artwork by Stella Blu attached to it. You can hear more of Prince commanding his band while transforming yet another much loved classic to fit in with his latest sound. It features a lot of guitar solos, piano playing, and fits perfectly beside their cover of ‘The Sweeter She Is’. Hearing Prince’s vocals singing the chorus with the guitar mirroring the vocal melody before descending into another solo that closes the track was also a really satisfying conclusion to the song.
Empty Room: Prior to appearing with 3RDEYEGIRL for his final Saturday Night Live appearance, a rehearsal version of the bootlegged Revolution era classic ‘Empty Room’ was released to stream and hear. Part of me was disappointed when the song wasn’t played live on SNL but was again a perfect opportunity for Prince to tease us with just how tight his band is, and show his wealth of songs sitting beneath Paisley Park, doing nothing but waiting for their time to shine. The rehearsal went live on October 27th 2014 and gave fans a look at how his latest band handled one of the most loved Prince bootlegs, which was especially handy for those like me who couldn’t make their shows. After taking the song out of the vault to start performing in 2002, it became an unreleased song played every now and again by 3RDEYEGIRL in 2014 before it’s final live performance on February 4th 2015.
In the final phase of his life, Prince embarked on a Solo Piano & Microphone tour that took him across Australia, New Zealand and America. From this tour came three singles, released exclusively to TIDAL, giving fans a chance to hear how his more produced and layered songs had been reimagined and stripped down for the tour. The first of the three singles was ‘Joy In Repetition SOH’, cut from Prince’s performance at the Sydney Opera House in February 2016 before being released as a single on March 9th. The second came on March 14th with a live medley of ‘Little Red Corvette/Dirty Mind’ being released as a purple pick of the week on TIDAL, recorded at the same show as ‘Joy In Repetition’. After Prince converted to being a Jehovah Witness in the late 90’s, hearing him return to his more sexually explicit material such as ‘Dirty Mind’ was a real shock — but also like everything was coming full circle.
April 18th saw the final single, a release of ‘Black Sweat’, from the second of two shows played on April 14th at Georgia’s Fox Theater. It was interesting to hear Prince adapt such a minimalistic and electronic song to fit just his vocals and a piano, but obviously managed to pull it off. His vocals sounded strong and playful as he bashed the piano keys to keep up the repeating groove, while also remarking “funk is space” at the beginning of the track — a mantra he began to really teach and live by in this final phase. At a Paisley Park After Dark appearance on April 17th, Prince shared with the crowd how the April 14th show had been recorded and mixed for release; he even played a portion of it over the speakers for the crowd. But ‘Black Sweat’ sadly ended up as the final single Prince released in his lifetime.
If you made it this far, then you are a star and your dedication really means a lot to me! Hopefully you can see just how much I really love and adore this era of Prince’s music. I plan on hopefully writing a few more Prince reviews in the near future, but can promise a review for the upcoming ‘Welcome 2 America’ album which I’m really excited to share. I hope you’ll be back in the near future for any purple reviews I end up writing, among other ones I have planned. Be sure to follow my Instagram for any updates on upcoming blog posts, as well as my own music which you can listen to here. Peace N B Wild!
